Concern about the influence of
electoral systems has grown in the United States in recent years, because of a number of
factors, including the decision by the Supreme Court in Shaw v. Reno, the
rulings by federal courts dealing with cumulative voting in Maryland and the failed
nomination of Lani Guinier to the Department of Justice.

This increased interest is not purely
academic because decisions regarding the implementation of electoral systems have
substantial consequences for political representation. It is no surprise that the rules of
a game can affect its outcome. In the realm of elections, however, the distinct outcomes
resulting from different 'rules' can have major implications for governmental policy.

While it is clear that the electoral
structure can constrain and influence election outcomes, the exact influence is often
difficult to gauge. This is due to the simple fact that no two elections are exactly
alike. Each election has its own dynamics resulting from the interaction among the
candidates running, the campaign issues, and the cultural context.

Even two elections in the same community
at two points in time will have different dynamics. The difficulties are even greater when
comparing elections across areas that have different political cultures, as is most
apparent in cross national comparisons. It can therefore be quite difficult to identify
with any precision the impact of electoral rules on outcomes and representation.

In the realm of elections, the distinct outcomes resulting from different
"rules" can have major implications for governmental policy.

An Experimental Approach

In order to clarify our understanding of
the true impact of electoral institutions on behavior, it is useful to supplement
comparisons of actual electoral results with more controlled studies. In the fall of 1994,
an experiment was conducted that attempted to answer some of the questions about the
relationship between individual political behavior and the electoral systems of single
member districts, at-large systems and cumulative voting.In essence three mock elections were
conductedwhere all aspects, such as the information available and the candidates involved, were
controlled and equivalent across the experimental conditions. The only variation was the
electoral system in which the participants (353 undergraduates of State Univ. of New
York-Stony Brook) evaluated the information.The participants in this experiment were
presented with electoral guides that they were told to evaluate to determine if they were
useful and whether their counties should provide them for voters. These flyers were
constructed for the experiment with three sections: the first urged people to vote, the
second described the electoral system in the county and the third section gave brief
biographies of the six candidates. The first and third sections of all flyers
were identical, and only the description of the electoral system was systematically
manipulated. After answering a preliminary set of questions, the participants in the study
were told to imagine they were voters in Sullivan County (the county presented in the
flyer) in 1993, and asked how they would have cast their ballots. After casting their
hypothetical ballots, participants were asked a battery of questions including those
tapping their satisfaction with the systems and the difficulty they had with them.The hypothetical legislature in the study
consisted of nine members. In the single member district case, participants could choose
among the six candidates for the representative of their district. The participants in the
two multi-member conditions -- at-large and cumulative voting -- were informed that the
legislature used a staggered system with three year terms and three seats up for election
each year. Thus, these participants could cast three ballots and were told there would be
three winners. The candidates were an anti-corruption reform Democrat (Anderson), an
anti-crime Republican (Dallin), an experienced Democrat (Froehlich), an African-American
Independent (Morris), a business leader Republican with prior political experience
(Nikkels) and a female Independent (Williams).

Election Outcome by System

Candidate (party id.)

Single Member District

At-Large Election

Cumulative Voting

Percent of People who Plumped

Anderson (Dem)

11.9

15.0

16.0 (3)

30.8

Dallin (Rep)

22.0 (2)

22.0 (1)

28.7 (1)

48.4

Froelich (Dem)

28.0 (1)

17.4 (3)

12.3

12.5

Morris (Ind)

7.6

8.6

6.2

40.0

Nikkels (Rep)

20.3 (3)

19.6 (2)

23.5 (2)

48.7

Williams (Ind)

10.2

17.4 (3)

13.3

25.6

n-voters

118

116

110

-

n-ballots

118

327

324

-

Impact of Electoral System on Election Outcomes

It is appropriate that the bulk of the
work on elections has focused on their impact on electoral outcomes because elections are
the central mechanism for translating citizen preferences into representation in modern
democracies.

Because all other factors have been
controlled, this experiment permits a clean test of how different electoral systems affect election
outcomes. Treating each of the experimental conditions as a separate 'election' allows for
comparisons in the context of the current study. Table 1 provides the breakdown for the
candidates in each of the electoral conditions.

The first finding from Table 1 worth
noting is simply that the rank ordering of the candidates and thus the election outcomes
did differ across the electoral systems. As noted earlier, the rules of the game affects
who wins, and this is clearly demonstrated in the results.

These results show that the differences in
how the systems translate preferences into representation may have severe consequences for
the electoral outcomes. This can be seen where the individual winner in the single member
district system (Froelich) wins none of the three seats available in the cumulative voting
condition.

In addition, the study demonstrates how
some candidates with smaller cores of supporters may benefit from multi-member systems and
thus broaden the base of citizenry represented in legislative bodies. I will briefly
summarize the results here as they pertain to two of the hypothetical candidates, Froelich
and Williams, because they present clear demonstrations about the nature of representation
as mediated by the rules of the game.

Questions About a Plurality Winner

The most dramatic differences between
the different conditions can be seen for Froelich, the experienced Democrat, who won the
plurality of the vote in the single-member district condition and tied for third in the
at-large condition, yet came in fifth place in the cumulative voting condition.

These distinctions highlight the concerns
many have about plurality, single member district systems: a candidate can win who has a
plurality of support, even if (1) this support is weaker than that held for other
candidates, and (2) the candidate is considered a weak alternative among non-supporters.

The fact that support for Froelich is
weaker than the support for other candidates can be seen by the participants'
unwillingness to cast multiple ballots for him in cumulative voting, and that a smaller
proportion of Froelich supporters plump their ballots (i.e. cast more than one ballot for
a candidate) than the supporters of any of the other candidates.

The claim that fewer non-Froelich voters
consider him a clear alternative to their first choice can be seen in the comparison of
the single member district results to the at-large condition. When voters are given two
more ballots to 'spread around', Froelich is the only candidate to do substantially worse
in comparison to the other candidates. That is, relatively fewer non-principal Froelich
supporters considered him an adequate second or third choice.

Taken together, these two comparisons
provide clear evidence of the potential dilemma for democratic theory in translating voter
preferences into representation under plurality rules when there are more than two
candidates competing for a single office.

Comparisons for Women Candidates

The other case highlights the
influence of electoral systems on the selection of Williams, the female Independent
candidate. Scholars have often argued that women candidates do better in multi-member
district elections than in single member districts, although the evidence is somewhat
mixed.

The experimental outcome lends some
support for the argument that women candidates may benefit when voters have an opportunity
to help elect several candidates. While Froelich was shown to do worse relative to the
other candidates when voters were given more ballots, Williams was the main beneficiary of
that change. In spite of not having a base of partisan support, participants were willing
to give her one of their votes when they had them to spread around.

However, much of Williams' gain in support
was lost when participants were allowed to plump their ballots for their preferred
candidates. Thus, while women may gain some benefit in at-large systems, it may not
necessarily hold across all types of multi-member district elections. This raises
important questions for those who claim that cumulative voting is a good alternative
system to bolster the electoral empowerment of both minority and female candidates.

Individual Reactions to the Electoral Systems

Since the critical aspect of electoral
systems deal with the translation of preferences into representation, they play a central
role in democracy. These systems are not only important for deciding the composition of
elected bodies, but for maintaining legitimacy of the outcomes. Therefore, how alternative
systems are perceived will affect how seriously they are considered, as was seen in the
outcry over Lani Guinier's "undemocratic" beliefs about the inadequacy of
"winner-take-all" electoral systems.

Perceptions of Electoral Choice and System

Satisfaction with Expression

Single Member District

At-Large Election

Cumulative Voting

Candidate Preferences

0.648

0.697

0.705

Candidate Strength

0.615

0.617

0.752

Perceptions of System

Difficult to Understand

0.312

0.245

0.230

Fairness of Selection

0.668

0.703

0.727

Note: All scales range from 0 to 1 with higher values reflecting greater satisfaction
in the top two rows and perceptions of greater difficulty and fairness in the bottom two.
For example, participants found single-member districts harder to understand than
cumulative voting.

Some recent research has examined
individuals' satisfaction and difficulty with new election systems like cumulative voting.
The findings from these studies suggest that arguments about cumulative voting's
complexity for voters are overstated, but analysis of voter satisfaction has often been
tainted by the real world dynamics created by cumulative voting systems being adopted
after a judicial mandate to change a local system. The experimental context of this study
allows for a more objective examination of perceptions of the fairness of different
electoral systems as well as their difficulty.

After selecting candidates in the mock
election, participants were asked about their satisfaction with their ability to express
preferences and the difficulty they had understanding the electoral systems. Table 2
provides the average responses for individuals in each electoral system regarding these
perceptions.

The first two questions in the table give
the level of satisfaction individuals felt regarding their abilities to express which
candidates they preferred in the election and to express how strongly they preferred
specific candidates. These scales range from 0 for extremely dissatisfied to 1 for
extremely satisfied, with a 0.667 being moderately satisfied.

The experimental results demonstrate that
individuals can distinguish among electoral systems in how their preferences are tallied.
Individuals in the two multi-member electoral systems, at-large and cumulative voting,
were significantly more satisfied with their ability to express the candidates they
preferred than individuals voting in the single member district election.

Not only are systems such as cumulative voting not considered too difficult to
understand, they are also considered as fair as those more commonly used such as single
member plurality elections.

Also, the participants in the
cumulative voting condition were significantly more satisfied than those voting in the
other elections regarding their ability to express the strength of their preferences. Thus
the concerns addressed by democratic theory dealing with the translation of preferences
into representation are not lost on the electorate.

Another concern with unfamiliar electoral
systems is that they may be difficult for citizens to understand. Participants were asked
if they agreed or for strong agreement.

It is clear from Table 2 that participants
did not find any of the three systems too difficult. In fact, those in the at-large and
cumulative voting conditions disagreed significantly more than those voting in the single
member district election. Not only are systems such as cumulative voting not considered
too difficult to understand, they are also considered as fair as those more commonly used
such as single member plurality elections. Participants in all three systems are seen to
moderately agree that the system they used gave everyone a fair chance to select officials
of their choice.

This study demonstrates that electoral
systems have a clear influence on the outcomes and perceptions of elections. The manner
that individuals can cast ballots and the way that they are tallied can clearly lead to
different results. These variations occur, in part, because people use distinct decision
rules in different institutional settings; in this case, voters expressed different
preferences under different electoral rules.

Given this finding, the goals of elections
must be seriously considered when evaluating the merits of specific electoral systems.
These goals will generally need to address how preferences are to be tallied for
translation into representation. These should be the principal concerns because a number
of studies, including this one, have shown that citizens can readily learn the mechanics
of different systems. This experiment augments the examinations of actual electoral
outcomes by providing truly comparable results across different systems. Combining these
different approaches will help us gain a fuller understanding of the nature of elections
and, more broadly, representation. Richard Timpone is an assistant
professor of political science at the State University of New York at Stony Brook.

In Detroit, there have been three mayors in the past two years and the current one has come under scrutiny. Perhaps a system like instant runoff voting will help bring political stability to motor city.